Nigerian Tribune 19 Mo nday, 20 June. 201 1
Agriculture deserves serious national attention --
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N his mau gural speech on the 29t h May, 2011. President Goodlu ck Jonatha n, stated tha t the time for ou r nationallamenlatioll was over. Thai w<ts a statement of hope. Apart from e lectrici ty which I ad · d ressed last week. Olle major area wh ich d eserves serious a!lention is agricultu re. TI1Crc is no d oubt Ihat this sector
or the
economy hilS for long been neglected. Yet agricultu rc is our mai n occupation. In fact it is a p rofession as old as the world itself. God Imd sanctioned it right from the fi rst days aUer the cre" tion. Indeed, the creation of man (and of woman) was an afte r-tho ught, informed essentially by thc need to have !Omeone who wou ld till the ground: "Genesis 2;5; "And e"ery plant of the field before it was in the carth, and every he rb o f the field before it grew: for the LORD GOO h,d "o,,'u"" it '0 ,,;n uPO" the ea rth, and there was not a man to till the ground :' ( Kil1g , _mes Versiol1 ) Agriculture employs about 70% of the Nigerian population. This is not pecu liar to us All over the wo rld, no country takes agricu lt ure [ightly. In spite of the fact that a large all!'a of Australia is a desert, the country realizes over S15 billion a year fro m agricult ural products from the Northern zone aro und Darwin , Weste rn zone a ro u nd Perth Quct'nsland area in the East. Sou th \Vest and Sou th around Victoria and Tasmania . In India, agriculture is the m:ljor occupation and it accou nts for 16.6% of the GOP in 2007. Brazil shil res a lot in com mon w ith N igeria being a tropica l cou ntry. It is blessed wi th ag.ricultutilt resources. Hal f of Brazil is cove red with rain forest w hile the Sou th East w ith g rassland similar to the midd le belt of Nigeria makes Brazil proud wilh variety of ag ricu ltural product. • Canada is famous for w heat produclion in the pra iries. Olher areas of agricult u rc involve dairy farming. egg. fish and seafood, fruit, g ra in. honey, potato, poult ry, vegetilble and w ine industries. Eu ropean cou nt ries including Oritai n m ajor in lIgricu ltu ral p rod ucts that thrive in temperate regions. Chi na emp loys over 300 million fa rmcrs and ra nks first in world wide fa nn product includ ing rice. The truth is th:ll any cou ntry that negleets agricul h lre does 50 OIl its own peril. Nigeria has always been traditionally f:lfllle rs. When Ihe whiteman came to the terri tory now know n as N igeria, we wedTe hllPPY farmers. The North grew gro un nut and the ground-n ut pyramid in Kano f h f h ' sti ll offers re res ing memory 0 t e mdustrv of people from th3.1 region. The £.1sl \"'as (amous for its palm tree plant .. tio n; the West cul tiva tcd cocoa in phenomenal proportions while the Mid-West g rew ru bber for large induslrial and commercial uses. The country's re,'enue at the time was derived larg"y, if not wholly, from agricultu re. Before the Nigerian Civil War, popularl y called the Biafran War, Nigeri;-. had food s ufficiency. The wa r was fough t wit h for~ign e!xchange derived mainly from agricultu re. especially cocoa.
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- Vice Presiden t Na.madi Sambo It is true that at least up till 1970, cocoa was the leading non·oil f~lreign exchange earner, fo llowed by rubber. Bu t lhedepletion of the work-force b)' oil boom now o il d oom has greatl y reduced o ut-put. The abolit io n of the Nigeria n Cocoa Board has also slowed down the cultivation of cocoa s uch thai even Ihough tile
have lost ou r position as the la rges t producer of COCO:l in Wcst Africa. We now imporl s uch food crops as beans, rice. maize, sorghum and o thc rs th at we could conveniently grow here with our good vegetation which is com pa rable onl y 10 that of Brazil. Presidenl Jonathan who has pro m-
"There is n eed to divide the country into agriculrural zon es with each zone specialising in appropria te crop. Groundnut and other grains in the d far North, rice, sugarcane and fo od crops in an around Niger belt, the West in Cocoa and fruits, East in p alm oil and allied p rodu cts and MidWest in r ubber and other trees". country has capaci ty to produce over 300.000 Io ns o f the produce per yea r, on ly about 145,000 tons was in fact produce<L This figu re has gone d own considerably . The change in occu pational pattern from agriculture has been due to the d iscovery of oil in commercial quantity. With Ihe oi l boom a nd Udo,' ; awa rd, most of you ng men d t!SC.rted the farm and most of the wealth-producing trees were cut dow n as timber for wood p~ cessing fa cto ries. Some o thers we re burnt down during the dry season by wanton boys hu nti ng for games. Now oil acrounts fo r 95% of ou r revenue. We
Most Inslltutiona] programmes In 1Ign(UHure like Rive r BaSin Development Autho ri ty. Grecn Revolullon, NatIOnal Seek Sen 1CC, Rural Integrated Ag ncullura l Deve lo pment Prog ramme, e le, have not made sig nificant impact because of Nige rian facts and the altendanl policy shift of each newadministration. AGR ICULTURAL CREDIT OR LOAN What wc ha"e also witnessed in ~ ccnt times in this country is the ha[fhea rted, lip-service atten tion paid by most governments to the development of agricultu re whereby in ap preciation of support for elections or to induce loyall y, governors simply give Hloans" to part)' faithrul and s uppo rlers ostensibly for farming. More oHen than not, the "10..1115" either ended up as gifts in ordcr to oi l party machinery or werc d i"",ed by be".r;ci";,, d ueto.""'n" or monito ring by relevant organs of govemment. In the end, nei ther the governmenLs nor the people felt any im pact of the huge eICpense;. ADVI CE TO EX-GOVERNOR ONI It was. lea rning from th:lt experience, Ih:lt I ad vised Ihc admi n istrat ion o( Govemor Segu n Oni in Eki ti State to avoid old errors of giving agricultural loans /c redH to individual farmers . I rcaso ned that beller result wou ld be achie,'ed if lInnuall), al least ten serious farmers were identified in each loca [ govemment. Each fa rmer w(>uld, for a starl, have two hectares of cu ltiv<'Ible land ont' (or pennanent cro ps :lnd another for food crop!. A task force would be conslilu ted 10 insJX!cI Ihe land. After certification, the farmers wou ld be given money to clear the land . TIle task force would ins pect and aga in , afte r cer tif ic ation , Ihe farmers wo uld be given anot her insta lmenl to pla n t, ye t another to m!li ntain lind th e las l in st:l lme nl to harvest and s tore. Each phase wo uld be monitored reg ularly by the task force which would also certify before money was made available for the next phi1se. The process wou ld be repeated e\'ery yea r while the size of the land wo uld also be increased by at least two more acres each yeilr. In the end, in a period of aboul fo ur yea rs, there would be al least 80 hectares o f land cu llivated by fort y f:mners, with half of th"t land made up of food crops :lnd the other half permanent crops.
ised to end ou r lamentalion should m ake If th is is adopted. it wou ld gre, ally hel p us 10 reva mp the agricultura secconscious efforts to encourage farmin g. tor and bnng back fa rmers who would Wc must be prepared to jettison the antiI . . , d rr ". hkh re lies o rganize t lcmselves m to coopera tives qua e meal1s 0 arml •. g w ". such that even if we could nol ge, thouhea vily on hoes .md cu tlasses. We musl sands of hec:tares of land at onee for fa rm'-,dy . mb, rk on laroe-scale (arm- ing. large farms cou ld still be dc"elor......I ...., .. , '0 u in g th rough coopera ti ve en te rprise. grad uall y. [ urge on all government and Thcll!' is need to dh'ide the country into the r resident this my"' hu mble plan of o"-" 'u',' ag".u • zon.. with each zone snPrrevamping agriculture. cializing in appropriate crop . GroundSurely, if we get agricul ture right, and nul and other grains in the far Nor th, encourage more "--'ple togo back to the " . , g' _ •• nd rood , op' in and ,. ~ TI C, U r".an .. farm , it would be one way of creating o"nd N "' g.,L", tL ~ \V....t in Cocoa lind :lr • ...., ,ne ...... wealth. and bridgi ng this wide g:lp be-fruits, East in palm oil and allied prod- tween the rich and the poor which Presiuets and Mid-West in rubber and other f trees. d ent Good luck Jonathan, like some 0 us, find reOlI-,y aEP.illling.
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